Dealing with terror's source

by Ashok K Mehta

(December 11, New Delhi, Sri Lanka Guardian) Before we set out for Singapore for the sixth round of the India-Pakistan Peace Process last week, held under the aegis of Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, we had a significant number of dropouts. Some Indian participants opted out -- they felt this was not the right time to talk to Pakistan as it would send a wrong message that it was business as usual and that Pakistan should not be allowed to think it could keep "hitting us and expect that it would be business as usual". At least one suggested very severe measures like suspending the Indus Water Treaty, and "overt and covert measures to cut Pakistan down to size". Mumbai after all, was not just another terrorist attack. It had changed the paradigm of hitting at India's vitals.

The Pakistanis who made it to the conference were simply outnumbered because it was so difficult for them to get visas for Singapore and the Bangkok airport had been commandeered by anti-Government protesters.

The significant thing about our India-Pakistan track II conference was that it started after the attack on Parliament in 2001 and has endured, no matter how bad the ambience surrounding the relationship between the two countries. In Kathmandu in 2003, even as diplomatic relations between the nations were being resumed, at our meeting participants began with raised voices but managed to talk their way through the tension. From talking at each other, they were talking to each other by the end of the conference.

This was my fervent hope at the start of this conference as well. Taxi driver Paul Lee received us at Changi Airport. Singapore, Lee reassured us, had never witnessed a terrorist attack though as an island it was vulnerable from the sea. The only setback to its immaculate security record was the escape from custody earlier this year of a Singaporean Muslim national Mas Salamat, who had been implicated in terrorist attacks in Indonesia.

Granted Indonesia was bad. But Mumbai was also not just another terrorist attack. It has been hit periodically since 1993 to rupture the commercial heart of India and cripple its economy. The current decapitating strike had created a crisis in India-Pakistan relations even more serious than the attack on Parliament in 2001. Because the Mumbai attack was a systematic violation of Pakistan's pledges at least five times since 2002 not to allow the use of its soil for jihadis to target India, in Singapore it was made clear to Pakistanis that this time public anger and political and electoral compulsions would not permit the ruling regime in India to let this pass as just another terrorist attack. It was a crisis for India. Therefore Pakistan needed to take quick, visible and convincing action to the satisfaction of India against anti-India terrorist groups based in Pakistan which according to information and intelligence provided and to be provided, had committed the crime.

Pakistanis were quick to recall the legacy of the lack of hard evidence shrouding past allegations. Give Pakistan "compelling evidence and it will act under due process of law" it was said. The Pakistanis said there should be recognition of the fact that a weak, yet to be embedded civilian Government with tenuous relations with the military was in place and that terrorist groups enjoyed a fair degree of autonomy under a dispensation in which the ISI was still a wild card.

A retired Pakistani General tried to correct this perception saying that the new Army Chief, Gen Parvez Kayani, was in full control of the ISI under its new Chief, Lt Gen Ahmad Shuja Pasha. Cancelling the despatch of Gen Pasha to Delhi to help in the investigation was put down to the lack of consultation between the political leadership and the Army Chief. If Gen Pervez Musharraf could not act against LeT chief Hafiz Sayeed, how could President Asif Ali Zardari who has warned that non-state actors could provoke a war?

For the first time perhaps, the Pakistanis openly admitted their country's complicity in creating the Taliban and supporting the jihadis who, they said, have turned inwards. When the military was in power, relations with India improved substantially and even the Kashmir dispute appeared resolvable. However, this trend reversed when a civilian Government came to power. This observation by a Pakistani was as striking as the admission of fuelling jihad.

Pakistanis expressed their own anger about the country having become hostage to the jihadis who comprise just 0.2 per cent of the population. While the new minority, Pakistan People's Party Government had assumed full ownership of the war against terror, they noted that the US had played a very negative role in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The threat to Pakistan, they said, came from terrorism and not India. For instance, a signature campaign, "Yeh Ham Main Se Nahin", to disown jihadis and terrorists was signed by as many people as those who voted in the elections.

However, while saying they were sorry about Mumbai, the Pakistanis were not apologetic even as one of them revealed that his Indian friend sent him a mail asking Pakistan to apologise. Why, he wondered, as his fellow countrymen added that Pakistan was itself a victim of terrorism. An Indian added: "Also the source of it".

Remarkably, the deliberations were devoid of any tension. Instead participants displayed striking balance and composure. Voices were not raised and discussion conducted with candour but civilised expression.

The bottomline was on how to save the peace process, not call off the composite dialogue and the ceasefire. The conference revealed how the Joint Anti-Terror Mechanism was meant to be an institutional mechanism for both countries to address terrorism-related issues together and cooperatively but instead had become a crutch to salvage the peace process whenever it got derailed.

The JATM has been an utter failure at getting to the root of terrorist attacks for which it was intended. Pakistanis acknowledged that they needed to empathise with India. They suggested visits by parliamentary and business delegations to each other's countries, a signature campaign in Pakistan condemning terrorism and management of public perception.

The Indians reciprocated by offering to scale down its list of 20 wanted offenders to just jihadi leaders linked to the Mumbai attacks. The challenge lay in getting Pakistan to act without any loss of face and a jihadi riposte.

I'm still in Singapore. BBC is reporting that Lashkar-e-Tayyeba camps near Muzaffarabad have been raided and that LeT leaders linked to the Mumbai massacre have been taken into custody. If this meets India's demands it is remarkable that it has happened at all. - Sri Lanka Guardian